1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and program for generating integrated database of imaged map.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, according to the proposed techniques, a camera that is mounted on such as an airplane is used for photographing an image of a ground surface, to specify the position of a target ground surface. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-331831 discloses a position-reading unit which can read and register a damaged point in real time, while the images output by a TV camera are watched. This TV camera is mounted on an airplane, and takes photos always in a perpendicular downward direction. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-343213 discloses a position specification unit which photographs an image of a ground surface using a camera mounted on a mobile object, such as an airplane, and specifies the absolute position of the target to be photographed, based on a photography direction of the camera, a travel direction of the mobile object, the absolute position of the mobile object, and the distance between the camera and the target to be photographed.
The conventional technique of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-331831 has a problem that the photography direction of a camera is limited only to a perpendicular downward direction, thus has a very low degree of freedom in the photography direction.
The conventional technique of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-343213 has a problem that the azimuth direction cannot be decided, when the operator performs the photographing while holding the camera in hand. This is because the rotational angle of the camera is obtained with respect to the axis fixed on a mobile object (for example, airplane), and the azimuth angle is determined based on this rotational angle and the traveling direction of the mobile object.